by Gregg Loomis
“Perhaps you’d rather hear Tchaikovsky.”
She put her hands to her ears. “Those damn cannons are worse than the dancers, and the church bells give me a headache.”
Maria preferred Kenny Rogers to Rachmaninoff, Hank Williams to Wagner. Although born Italian, she had gone to college and grad school in the United States, absorbing odd pieces of American pop culture as well as Americanized English with a Western twang. Her interest and passion, though, were volcanoes. She had returned to work for the government of her native land. After all, few volcanoes were privately owned.
Truthfully, Jason enjoyed American country music too; he simply couldn’t paint and listen at the same time. The tragedies of deserted lovers, broken trucks, runaway trains, and the other subjects the singers lamented were distracting.
And Pangloss insisted on accompanying each with the most doleful of howls.
Jason changed the subject. “So, what time is your body on now? What time is it in Hawaii?”
She shook her head. “Two days ago, a week from now. Who knows? I’m tired of being tired. Think I’ll go into town, see what’s new.”
“Nothing since the Normans left about four hundred years ago.”
“OK, so I’ll see the same old stuff. But I haven’t seen it in a month. Want to come along?”
He gave the invitation some thought. “Why not? Maybe I can find a Herald Tribune, see how Washington’s doing.”
“First in war, first in peace, and last in the National League East.”
He smiled at the hoary joke. The Washington baseball team had arrived from Montreal long after Jason had left the town house in Georgetown that he had shared with Laurin; but, like so many expats, following a sports team was a trace of a homeland he both missed and to which he had no intent of returning. The English-language paper also featured Calvin and Hobbes, a favorite comic strip long since absent from American papers.
“Suzuki or Suzuki?”
Motorcycle or car.
Upon arrival on the island, Jason had purchased a well-worn Suzuki Samurai, a small jeeplike vehicle with an underpowered engine but a clutch and four-wheel drive that were equal to the surrounding hills. Its two rear seats were almost large enough for two adults and served as carrying space for his canvasses, groceries and, when Maria was with him, Pangloss. The quality of the car had induced him to buy a used 250 cc motorcycle by the same manufacturer, a machine for which Maria did not share his enthusiasm.
“Does it matter?”
“Try wearing a skirt on the back of a bike and ask that question.”
“A zillion Italian women don’t ask it; they just do it.”
“The cause of large families.”
Robespierre appeared from nowhere and began to rub against Maria’s leg. Pangloss eyed the cat with canine caution.
“If we take the car, we can include Pangloss,” Maria said helpfully.
Jason was already wiping his brushes clean. “The car it is, then.”
The road to the causeway consisted of more potholes than pavement, each of which produced a grunt of discomfort from Pangloss in the rear. Before Maria could begin her normal complaints about the speed at which Jason insisted on driving, he initiated a conversation.
“You were so tired when you got in last night, I didn’t have a chance to ask: How was the trip?”
She related the airlines’ latest atrocities, now routine in the course of air travel. “Other than that, nothing you’d find interesting. And you?”
He gave her a nervous glance before returning to concentrate on what passed for the road. “Me?”
“I’m not talking to the dog. Gianna told me you were gone a couple of days.”
Jason cursed himself for not swearing the housekeeper to silence. “Oh, I got tired of just hanging out, decided to go over to the mainland.”
He knew there was no chance this was going to satisfy her but it did give him a second or two to think.
He could feel the heat of her blue eyes burning into him. “Jason, you remember Casanova.”
The name by which she referred to her ex-husband, a man who seemed to be as capable a liar as he claimed to be a lover. The name came up on those rare occasions Jason had reason not to tell the whole truth.
“Never met the man.”
“Jason …”
He sighed heavily. “OK, so I had a friend in Africa who needed some help …”
“This wouldn’t be same friend who nearly got us killed in the Hades thing, would it?”
Jason sighed again, the sound of a man who had just realized his alibi was sinking faster than the Titanic. “OK, so, yeah, it was.” He saw the storm clouds gathering. “Why not? I mean, you were gone, off watching some volcano on the other side of the world… .”
“You promised.”
Where was his logical mind now?
“I promised I’d have nothing to do with those people as long as we were together. I don’t call your being gone a month or more at a time ‘together.’ What if I asked you to stop climbing around erupting volcanoes? That’s dangerous, too, y’know.”
She let go of the hand grip she had been holding on to as the car jolted down the road and entwined her fingers in her lap, something she did when she was giving something deep thought. “Then, I suppose, I would have a choice: quit or stay with you. I would not agree to do one thing and sneak around doing the other.”
She noted the set of his jaw. “Jason, I love you. Is it too much to ask that I don’t have to worry about you getting killed? Or, for that matter, my getting shot at? I never want to be forced to actually kill someone to save your life again. I mean, you yourself say you have more money than you’ll ever spend. Can’t you live long enough to try?”
“Not if it means letting those animals who are responsible for Laurin go free,” Jason said through clinched teeth, not taking his eyes off the road. “Not if it takes the rest of my life. Can’t you understand that?”
Maria turned in her seat to face him, putting a hand over his on the steering wheel. “I understand you loved her very much, still do, and I accept that. But when you’re full of hatred, how much can you love me?”
Neither metaphysics nor rhetoric was a subject in which Delta Force trained its members. Neither had he taken either course in college. Jason regretted the omission.
He placed a hand on her leg well above the knee as he turned onto the narrow causeway that led to the main part of the island. “I tried to show you how much I love you last night… .”
She removed his hand impatiently. “I was just too tired. Besides, sex and love aren’t the same. My ex demonstrated that enough. I—”
She followed his eyes. A large cement truck had turned onto the far end of the causeway. A construction company had brought several over on a special ferry from the mainland to do some work in the town. But there were no roads on this side of the causeway that would accommodate a vehicle of that size.
And there was no building going on.
“What … ?” Maria began.
Instantly alert, Jason shushed her with a hand gesture, looking over his shoulder. He stopped and quickly shifted into reverse and began speedily backing up, to the consternation of two motor scooters, a cyclist, and a pocket-sized Fiat 500. Two pedestrians, older women, crossed themselves as they scurried to the other side of the road.
Maria turned from staring out of the open rear flap of the Samurai’s canvas top and looked at the truck approaching with increasing speed. “Is he drunk, crazy, or both?”
Jason glanced to the front too, and then backward. The end of the causeway he had just left seemed impossibly far away. “I don’t intend to stick around to find out.”
The truck, smoke snorting from its vertical exhaust like the breath of a dragon, was rapidly filling the Samurai’s windshield. The road was barely wide enough for two small cars to pass. There was no room around the oncoming behemoth. The causeway here had been originally built centuries ago across a narrow stretch of swampla
nd that connected the two islands. Although eventually paved, there had been no reason to widen it or to add shoulders. Leaving the road meant running into a tidal bog of unknown depth, one that, under weight, could easily crumble into the sea that had been nibbling at the edges of the road since rock, pebbles, and sand had been used to steel it from the tides.
“Jason, that truck is going to hit us,” Maria said in a surprisingly calm tone.
She was right. Unless Jason could win the race to the end of the causeway behind him, there was no place to go. And it didn’t look like the contest was going in his favor.
7
It was becoming obvious that Jason was losing the race. He wasn’t going to get to the end of the causeway in time.
The causeway.
Shoving the lever that activated the Suzuki’s four-wheel drive, Jason drove over the lip of the pavement. Tires spun, hissing a rooster tail of mud, sand, and seawater into the air.
Then the tires caught, the sudden traction sending the diminutive car jolting forward.
“Jason,” Maria gasped, “you can’t …”
He ignored her as he began a sweeping crescent with the cement mixer at its center. The problem, he thought, was that there was no way to tell where the foundations of the causeway abruptly dropped off into the sea. At any second, the Suzuki could run off the shelf, overturn, and sink with all aboard.
The truck’s driver suddenly became aware his prey was about to escape and abruptly turned off the pavement also. Just as Jason had anticipated, the much heavier truck did not fare as well as the much lighter Suzuki. The second its double rear wheels left the road, a geyser of muddy mix shot into the air, and it came to an abrupt stop and listed to the right like a sinking ship.
Jason made another abrupt turn, heading straight for the larger vehicle. When he was within a few yards, he brought the car to a stop, hopping out.
“Jason! What—?”
Without pausing in the knee-deep water, he shouted over his shoulder. “Drive back onto the pavement!”
As he reached the side of the cement mixer, the driver was halfway out of the window. By now the door was partially submerged and Jason guessed it had either jammed or was being held shut by water pressure. Jason made a grab for the driver’s shirt but was met with a swish of a knife’s blade splitting the air.
Jason sloshed his way a few steps toward the back of the big rig, where the driver couldn’t quite reach him and had to strain to see to the rear. With a leap, Jason had an arm around the one that held the knife. He took a step forward, slamming the arm down onto the windowsill. The sound of the cracking ulna and a scream of pain seemed simultaneous.
The knife splashed harmlessly into the murky water.
With both hands grabbing the man’s shirt, Jason wrestled him through the open window. Jason wrenched the injured arm behind the driver’s back, forcing him to kneel in the water. If the man was not an Arab, he certainly could have passed muster for one. Dark-skinned and bearded.
Jason placed a knee between the man’s shoulders, forcing him forward so that his face was only inches from seawater. “Who sent you?”
Turning his head, he spat in Jason’s general direction.
Leaning forward, Jason forced the struggling man’s head underwater. He watched until the frenzy of bubbles calmed before he used his free hand to grab a handful of hair. Gasping, spluttering, the truck driver gulped air as though the supply might run out.
“Now, we’ll try one more time: Who sent you?”
Although Jason spoke no Arabic, he was fairly certain he was hearing curses, not names.
The man’s head went back underwater. This time Jason waited until the bubbles ceased before pulling him up. At first, Jason thought he might have waited too long, but the man coughed into life like a balky car motor on a cold morning.
“Glad you’re back with us. Now, absolute last chance: Who sent you?”
Silence.
This time Jason had every intention of drowning his former assailant, but there was a tug on his arm.
“Jason, no!”
Maria had come up behind him. “Jason, you’re killing him!”
“Maria, the man tried to run us over, squash us like bugs. What do you suggest, that I sue him?”
“You can’t just drown him in cold blood!”
“There’s nothing cold about my blood. I’m mad as hell.”
Maria was pleading but those blue eyes were angry. “Jason, let him go.”
“Why? So he or one of his buddies can try again and maybe succeed?”
“You can’t just kill him.”
“Watch me.”
“Jason,” she pled. “Violence begets violence. You kill him, then they come for revenge. It has to stop somewhere.”
Maria covered her mouth with her hand. “My God!” She was pointing. “You already killed him!”
Jason looked down. There were no more bubbles. He let go and the man pitched forward, facedown. “Problem solved.”
Maria’s face went white. She stooped to kneel in the water and pull the man’s head above water, glaring at Jason “You, you … you murderer!”
“Maria, be rational: He goes free, you think he’s going to thank us? Maybe with a long-range rifle shot or a bomb. The only way you deal with those people, the only thing they respect, is force. They want paradise; I intend to help them get there.”
The dead man began to cough. His eyes opened. Then he vomited seawater.
“Looks like this conversation is moot,” Jason observed, nodding toward the spectators who had gathered on the causeway, including police.
Someone had used their cell phone to summon the authorities. Another reason to hate the things. Now there was no way Jason could finish.
8
One Hour Later
Corporal Guideo Finallia, the ranking member of the main island’s three-man force, accompanied Jason and Maria to the door of the small police station. He had been assigned to this island to finish his time until retirement and was unhappy to be confronted with something more complex than a tourist whose pocket had been picked.
He ran a handkerchief across his sweaty face as he saw Jason and Maria into the street. He was clearly glad to say good-bye to Pangloss. The dog had behaved well but his sheer size could be intimidating to a stranger.
In the piazza across the street, the local open-air market was in full swing. Under canvas flaps, fish and other seafood were displayed on melting ice, to the delight of flies. Next to the fishmongers, butchers readily cut chunks from whole sides of beef, lamb, or pig or sold skinned rabbits hanging from horizontal bars, their long ears assuring the customer he was not buying a rat. Still-feathered ducks and chickens hung alongside. Farther along, fruit-and-vegetable sellers haggled with scarf-clad grandmothers and summer residents’ wives in designer pantsuits.
“The mens from Naples come,” the policeman said in broken English, “take this man away. He no have … er, proofs.”
“Identification?” Maria prodded.
“Sì, no ident-ti-fi-cation,” he confirmed gratefully. “Peoples on the road see what he do.” He looked at Jason. “He take truck, steal. You no know why he try to run you over?”
It was the fourth time the officer had asked the question.
Jason shook his head. “Maybe he has something against Jap cars.”
The officer put a chubby arm on Jason’s shoulder. “We find out.”
“I hope so. I can think of a lot better ways to spend my time than dodging cement trucks.”
Finallia looked puzzled, his thick eyebrows arching into a V over his nose. “Dodging?”
“Er, looking out for, getting out of the way of.”
The policeman smiled. “Ah, you make the joke! Americans always make the joke!” Then he became serious. “No worry. Company lock up rest of cement trucks.”
“That’s comforting to know.”
Finallia gave Jason’s hand a perfunctory pump, started to pat Pangloss on the head, an
d then thought better of it. “Go, have a little pasta, maybe pizza. No worry.”
They had taken no more than a dozen steps when Jason stopped.
“What?” Maria wanted to know.
It was the first word she had spoken to him since they had left the causeway.
Jason nodded. “That man in front of the pottery stall. He’s watching us. No, don’t look up… .”
Too late. The man Jason had spotted turned, shoving his way through a crowd whose white sneakers, souvenir T-shirts, and sunburned faces and arms marked them as cruise-boat passengers on a day trip as surely as any brand signified ownership of a cow. Jason took two steps in pursuit before realizing the futility of giving chase.
Maria maintained the same frigid silence she had begun before they left the causeway as she walked beside him up to the top of the hill toward Angelina, the Little Fisher-Girl, a trattoria specializing in local seafood. Its limited outdoor tables were already full of diners and a line had formed beside the entrance to the outdoor dining area, a small square delineated by potted bay trees.
Aside from decent fish and crustaceans, Angelina had made a concession to the largely American clientele it enjoyed in the summer: two large-screen TVs, tuned to CNN Europe. By September, Formula One races, soccer matches, and other events appealing to locals would draw customers to sip beer, wine, coffee, and grappa. The idea might make commercial sense, but Jason hated dining to the background of the talking heads, even if their voices were inaudible above the murmur of diners’ conversations.
The owner and maître d’, Giuseppe, met them at the entrance, his perpetual smile firmly in place. “Signore Peters, Signorina.” He bowed his head in that form of unctuousness particular to restaurant personnel greeting a big tipper. “Your table is ready.”
Their table was always ready even though Angelina took no reservations. The GTAEPS principle was as effective here as it was in New York, Los Angeles or, for that matter, Singapore: “Generous Tips Always Ensure Prompt Seating”—particularly in many European establishments where the gratuity is included in the bill. It also ensured Pangloss was as welcome as any other customer.